Decorations and Christmas Trees
by BookJunkie007
Summary: Notes: Thanks to my betas, ALLoB and BaronessKika for being super awesome.  No warnings.  The live Christmas tree is an actual thing in California (Living Christmas Company), where you can rent a live tree for the Christmas season, return it to the tree nursery for next year, and if the tree isn't suitable for rental next year, it's donated to environmental projects, which I think


**Notes: Thanks to my betas, ALLoB and BaronessKika for being super awesome. No warnings. The live Christmas tree is an actual thing in California (Living Christmas Company), where you can rent a live tree for the Christmas season, return it to the tree nursery for next year, and if the tree isn't suitable for rental next year, it's donated to environmental projects, which I think is pretty cool. Enjoy!**

I look up from the pot of soup that I've been stirring when I hear banging in the front entryway. Peeta had take Prim out on a special mission, and he hadn't told me what it was. I don't mind though; I'm just happy that Prim and Peeta are willing to hang out with each other while I'm busy cooking. It got Peeta to stop nibbling at my neck while I attempted to not burn supper. Not that it isn't sweet and incredibly sexy, but sometimes I need to be able to do something without getting distracted by his gorgeous body.

After a few moments, the banging leads into the living room and quiets down. I hear Peeta's footsteps come down the hall. When he comes into the kitchen, he wraps his arms around me, pulling me back against his body.

"Hey," he says, kissing my neck.

I involuntarily tilt my head to grant him better access. "Hey, yourself. How was your time out with Prim?"

"Very productive. We have something to show you."

"Okay," I say, turning the stove off. "What is it?"

Without a word, he takes my hand and leads me off to the living room. We stop just inside the door where I see a pair of men carefully adjusting a tree in the corner of our living room. Prim stands off to the side, bouncing on her toes, a giant bag of ice in her arms.

"Katniss, Katniss, check out our tree!"

"I see, Prim," I say, leaning into Peeta while he's wrapped an arm around my waist. "It looks good."

The three of us watch the men finish their work before Prim escorts them to the front door. She comes back into the living room with a big smile on her face.

"Now it's time to ice our tree!" she says, going to the kitchen for a pair of scissors.

"Ice the tree?" I ask in confusion. "Won't that kill the tree even faster?"

"Nope," Peeta explains. "This is a living tree. We get to keep it for Christmas, then it goes back to a nursery or goes to be donated to a tree planting organization for reforestation projects."

"That's pretty cool. I'll go get our ornaments."

I go up to our attic and bring down our small cardboard box of ornaments. We didn't have much money growing up (still don't, actually). Prim and I made most of the ornaments ourselves, so our collection is quite mismatched. This will most likely be the last year that we can do this as a family. It's Prim's senior year, and unless she takes the next year off (which I find highly unlikely), this will be our last chance. The thought of it kind of bums me out. Stubborn as I am, I don't want to give up my Christmas traditions with Prim just yet.

When I go back into the living room, Peeta turns on the stereo and blasts Christmas music.

We pull out our cheesy Christmas bows, which our mother had always insisted on placing around the house, no matter how tacky they looked, and carefully tie them on the tree. I also carefully take out the few store bought ornaments my mother was able scrape the money together to buy and hang them next.

I grab the paint brush Santas and macaroni angels which Prim and I made in elementary school and place them on the tree. The popsicle stick sleds which our father had spent an entire afternoon helping us make are hung next.

Peeta pulls out a bag of craft supplies which he and Prim had also picked up on the way home, and soon he and Prim are busy painting wooden ornaments and I'm attacking the construction paper with scissors to make paper ring chains and paper snowmen. I also fold up pieces of paper and use my expert snowflake cutting skills to create awesome designs on the snowflakes.

While we leave the wooden ornaments to dry, we hang my creations on the tree. Peeta also pulls out a package of candy canes, and we hang them on the tree without really caring how the final placement will look.

The last thing to be put on the tree, after the wooden ornaments are hung, will be this cheap homemade angel topper that we have. Prim made it one year when she was devastated to find that we didn't have a _real_ Christmas topper. It's a piece of construction paper rolled up into a cone with a pair of pipe cleaner wings and a pipe cleaner halo. It's kind of ugly, but it works.

Peeta goes into our kitchen and comes back with three cups of eggnog. Prim sits down on the floor and I sit on the couch with Peeta, snuggled into his side. When I take a drink, I feel the slight burn of rum going down my throat.

Prim insists that we have a Christmas carol singalong, so we sing along to the music about reindeers and winter wonderlands and dashing over snow.

All in all, I'm quite satisfied with how our tree turns out.


End file.
